All The Way Down

Chapter 22

It was nearly eleven, but the quarry pit was active and the sounds of trucks carried into the parking lot. It occurred to me as we walked the short sidewalk to the car that Brick's life was snuffed out on a night like this, and that I was driving his girlfriend back to his house in his car after having dinner with her at his kitchen table. My morality was gnawing at me, but I got into the car and started it up just the same. This time I wasn't watching Michelle's profile out of the corner of my eye when I drove. I was looking at my reflection that the lights from the instruments cast in the windshield. I wasn't sure any more whether I was hunting Brick's killers or if I was trying to take his place, and in doing so somehow claim the things that had belonged to him.

We were only a couple of miles from the intersection with the highway, and I could just pick out the headlights of cars coming west from Alamogordo. I thought back, trying to remember how many days I had been there. I must have been tired, because I had to focus hard to realize it had been less than a week. I shook my head.

"What's the matter?" Michelle asked.

"Nothing," I said. I wasn't going to tell her that I was unsure of my own motives, that I felt more alive in Brick's shoes than I had felt for several years in my own.

"Something's up. You haven’t said anything since we left the quarry. What is it?"

I wasn't going to tell her that I wanted to drive her back to Brick's house and make love to her there, but that I knew that she’d been in Brick's bed.

"Nothing," I said. "All right?" My voice sounded hard and cold, and she watched me for a second. Then she just gave up and crossed her arms, staring out the window into the darkness.

I didn't say anything else until we were back at the spot where the immigration patrol ran the roadblock. The traffic jam was gone, along with the patrol cars and the bus. I switched on the dome light in the car. The light it produced was feeble.

"Read me Ray's personnel file," I said. She was leaning up against the door, showing most of her back to me. "Please?" I asked.

"Okay," she said tonelessly. She pulled the copy of Ray's personnel file out of her purse and looked at the first page for a few seconds. "Ray's 36," she said factually. "He's worked at the quarry for three years. Graduated high school in Alamogordo, but that was before my time. No dependents listed under the insurance section. Looks like he's on his own."

"Except for Marty," I said quietly. She flipped the page and shifted her position in the seat to get more light on the pages of the file.

"Here's Ray's supervisor's report. Looks like the first two years there wasn't much to talk about. Apparently the supervisor didn't have any trouble with him. Last year looks different. This says that Ray was reprimanded for fighting with other drivers a couple of times. Wait a minute! Says here that Ray had a fight with Brick in the locker room only a few weeks ago."

"What?"

"It doesn’t say what the fight was about, but apparently several drivers had to separate them."

"Did Brick ever mention the fight to you?" I asked.

"No." She put the paperwork down in her lap and stared at me for several seconds.

''You know I would have told you about it if he had. You still don't trust me."

"I was just asking," I answered. I didn't think my voice carried much conviction in it. Michelle frowned and went back to reading the file. "This is odd," she said.

"What's that?"

"It says that the foreman reprimanded Ray last week for goldbricking in one of the trucks. It says that he only ran two loads from the quarry in his eight hour shift, and that only one load actually showed up at the train yard. It says he warned Ray that if it happened again, he'd fire him and dock him for the price of the load from the quarry."

"Does it say what Ray's excuse was?"

"Apparently Ray said he had trouble with the truck and didn’t think it was safe to drive to the train depot so he brought the truck back for the mechanics to look at."

"That might explain the missing run to the train yard, but not the missing load. Do they usually keep close track of how many runs the drivers do per shift?" I asked.

"Well, I've heard that most of the drivers average about four runs for a shift. The foreman does spot checks on the drivers to make sure they're pulling their weight."

"How would they know if a particular load shows up at the train yard or not?"

"They have a man at the train depot who writes down the tonnage of the load and the truck number when he loads the copper ore into the rail cars. If the foreman was doing a spot check on that driver, he'd see the number of loads that the driver dumped over there."

"Can you think of anyone local who would want to buy copper ore?" I asked.

"No. It requires a big processing plant to make anything useful out of it. There’s some gold in the ore, too, but not a lot."

"Maybe he just dumped it in the desert so he wouldn't have to make the trip over to the yard. Maybe he was sitting drinking beer somewhere," I said.

"Maybe," she said, but I don't think either of us believed it. We had passed Holloman Air Force base and were at the edge of Alamogordo. A smorgasbord of fast food restaurants, gas stations, and hotels beckoned us with neon lights.

"Do you mind if we drive by Ray's place on the way home?" I asked.

"That depends," she said. "Are you planning on getting into a fight with him tonight?"

"I just want to know where he lives," I said. "It would be easier if you helped me find it. Do you mind?"

"All right," she said. She looked at the first page of the personnel file, and read Ray's address from it. "1414 Mantez. Just drive like you're going to the shopping mall and take a right at the stop light just before you get to the mall." Then she reached across to hand me the folded up copy of Ray's personnel file. I took it from her and shifted forward in my seat far enough that I could get it into my back pocket.

I switched off the dome light. Michelle leaned back in her seat and heaved a big sigh. "You treat me like I’m your kid sister sometimes," she said. "You know that?"

I was dumbfounded. I said "What?"

"Figure it out," she said. She closed her eyes and sighed.